Pros and Cons of a Sports Pool Over a Traditional Pool

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Traditional pools – pools with a shallow end and a deep end and a bottom that slopes from one to the other – have long been popular as a place for fun, family activities and places to party across the Palm Beach – but if you’re planning your own in-ground pool are they the best choice for your family and your lifestyle?

While a traditional pool has the fun of diving, water slides as an option, and kids swimming to the bottom to fetch weighs and treasure as a fun activity, it limits the space that you can just relax in, and if you have a pool party everyone is squashed into the shallow end while the deep end sits empty, unless your guests are happy to sip their drinks as they tread water!

It’s also harder to play water sports and games with your family in a traditional pool – the balance of a game can be seriously swayed during water polo if one team can stand and the other can’t!

This is when you might start to think perhaps a sports pool is for you after all!

What’s a sports pool?

A sports pool has no deep end; instead both ends are usually around 3.5” with a deeper center of around 5-5.5” – meaning that there’s nowhere most adults can’t comfortably stand in the pool.

These pools are popular with those who use their pool to swim laps as exercise, with those who use the pool for family games and sports, team sports, and for people who regularly hold pool parties or entertain in their pool.

The pool being less deep across the length means that the whole pool is more useable for a wider range of activities, and gives plenty of room for a whole family to comfortable be using the pool at once without anyone being out of their depth or leaving a whole end of the pool empty while people squash together in the shallow end to relax.

The downside of these pools is that there’s not really a space where you could safely dive in, or dive to the bottom for weights, and water slides aren’t really an option.

Deciding which design to go for really depends on your lifestyle, the way in which you plan to use your pool, and personal preference.

Why compromise!

If you really can’t decide whether a traditional pool or a sports pool is for you there’s one other option – the L shaped, or lazy L, pool. These have a main body of water designed as a sports pool, with shallow ends and a slightly deeper center – or even one level depth right through – and around the turn of the L is the deep area, up to eight feet deep, ideal for diving, water slides and more – really giving you the best of both worlds!